Rachita Dash

I am a final-year Chemistry Ph.D. candidate at the University of Virginia. My research focuses on developing and applying methodologies to assess the accumulation of small molecules and peptides across cellular surfaces.

I possess a strong background in solid-phase peptide synthesis (especially in synthesizing macrocyclic peptides), flow cytometry, high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), MALDI-TOF, SDS-PAGE, protein expression, and click chemistry among other skills.

I am actively seeking positions starting 2026. Let’s connect!

news

Jul 14, 2025	UVA Graduate School of Arts and Sciences covered a story on our work on drug delivery.
Jun 15, 2025	Attended the 29th American Peptide Symposium in San Diego, California (funded by a travel award grant by the American Peptide Society) in San Diego, California
Apr 10, 2025	Awarded the Hunt Fellowship from the UVA Department of Chemistry for my final PhD year (2025–2026).
Mar 10, 2025	Awarded the university-wide Jefferson Fellowship (Dissertation Year) by the Jefferson Scholars Foundation for my final PhD year (2025–2026).
Oct 05, 2024	Selected by a University of Virginia College and Graduate School of Arts & Sciences faculty committee for the Littleton Glover Endowed Graduate Fellowship for 2024-2025!

selected publications

Profiling Cytosolic Drug Delivery in Mammalian Cells: A Generalizable Assay for Intracellular Accumulation

Sobika Bhandari, George M Ongwae, Rachita Dash, Zichen Liu, Yuchen He, Mahendra D Chordia, and 1 more author

bioRxiv, 2025

Bib PDF

@article{bhandari2025profiling,
  title = {Profiling Cytosolic Drug Delivery in Mammalian Cells: A Generalizable Assay for Intracellular Accumulation},
  author = {Bhandari, Sobika and Ongwae, George M and Dash, Rachita and Liu, Zichen and He, Yuchen and Chordia, Mahendra D and Pires, Marcos},
  journal = {bioRxiv},
  year = {2025},
  publisher = {Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory},
}

Systematic Determination of the Impact of Structural Edits on Peptide Accumulation into Mycobacteria

Rachita Dash, Zichen Liu, Irene Lepori, Mahendra D Chordia, Karl Ocius, Kadie Holsinger, and 5 more authors

ACS Chemical Biology, 2025

Bib PDF

@article{dash2025systematic,
  title = {Systematic Determination of the Impact of Structural Edits on Peptide Accumulation into Mycobacteria},
  author = {Dash, Rachita and Liu, Zichen and Lepori, Irene and Chordia, Mahendra D and Ocius, Karl and Holsinger, Kadie and Zhang, Han and Kenyon, Ryan and Im, Wonpil and Siegrist, M Sloan and others},
  journal = {ACS Chemical Biology},
  year = {2025},
  publisher = {ACS Publications},
}

Bioluminescence-Based Determination of Cytosolic Accumulation of Antibiotics in Escherichia coli

Rachita Dash, Kadie A Holsinger, Mahendra D Chordia, Mohammad Sharifian Gh, and Marcos M Pires

ACS Infectious Diseases, 2024

Bib PDF

@article{dash2024bioluminescence,
  title = {Bioluminescence-Based Determination of Cytosolic Accumulation of Antibiotics in Escherichia coli},
  author = {Dash, Rachita and Holsinger, Kadie A and Chordia, Mahendra D and Gh, Mohammad Sharifian and Pires, Marcos M},
  journal = {ACS Infectious Diseases},
  volume = {10},
  number = {5},
  pages = {1602--1611},
  year = {2024},
  publisher = {ACS Publications},
}